


Everyone Else Isn't You

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:58:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Everyone else isn't you. It turns out that's a huge problem for me.' A little bit of canon zouis, set in February 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Else Isn't You

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting ficlets from Tumblr because I like to have everything in one place. Title and summary quotation from Clementine Von Radics and inspiration from dicktrick on tumblr, who gave me the prompt 'Our embrace lasted too long./We loved right down to the bone'.

It’s just a thing they do these days, because Louis doesn’t know anyone in LA, because it’s two weeks before Zayn’s first single comes out, because it’s three weeks before Louis’s baby’s due, because it’s the calm before the storm. Louis’s new house in LA is five minutes from the place he bought Briana, and fifteen minutes from Zayn’s. It’s twenty minutes from Harry’s, but Zayn tactfully decided not to point that out to him that first night, when Louis came over all shadowed eyes and tight lips, stamping through Zayn’s front door like someone had deposited him there against his will, when Zayn knows for a fact that no one can make Louis do anything he doesn’t want to. No one except him, anyway.

And old habits die hard, right? That’s what Zayn tells himself. That’s what he told himself that first night after all the pleasantries were over, after he’d made Louis a cup of tea, feeling Louis’s eyes on him, half-desperate, as he waited for the kettle to boil. “You’re not pissed off any more, then,” Zayn had commented as he handed the tea over, and Louis had laughed, short and brittle, and said “Oh, believe me. I’m never going to stop being angry with you.”

That’s fair enough. Zayn’s angry with himself sometimes, although not as often these days. Sometimes he wonders why he didn’t feel like he could wait it out another year, because he’s seen the pictures during his obsessive night time scrolling through Twitter, the other four boys hugging each other, Liam and Louis smiling brightly into each other’s faces, like nothing was missing at all, as though they were fine without him. He supposes they got used to it, over time. He supposes he shouldn’t be irritated when he was the one who decided to go, but he is anyway. He’s glad they’ll be over soon, and not just for selfish reasons. He’s glad they’ll be free. Even still, that last year didn’t look terrible, except for the early days, when they accidentally left space for a fifth person.

“Do you remember Thailand?” Louis burst out that first night, when they were on Zayn’s big squashy sofa playing Grand Theft Auto, smoke in the air and a spilt beer bottle dribbling gold onto the floor next to Zayn’s feet. Louis’s legs were tucked underneath himself, like a kid in school assembly. “Hey, fuck you, fuck you,” he chanted, as his little avatar punched a cop, before throwing a glance sideways at Zayn. “Do you?”

“What part of Thailand?” Zayn said, before throwing him a smile that Louis only barely reciprocated. “Thailand was messy.”

“Thailand was sick,” Louis said, without much conviction, and Zayn laughed, remembered girls, too many girls, remembered Louis laughing against his mouth, remembered the two of them struggling out of their clothes and pushing each other onto the bed, the way they’d fucked and fought at the same time. God, Louis with his sharp teeth and sharper smile beneath him, Zayn settling across his hips, pressing his weight down, holding Louis’s wrists down on the mattress as Louis wriggled, not really wanting to get away. Louis’s soft intake of breath and his eyelashes shining dark gold against the shadows under his eyes as he finally gave himself over.

And then that first night that Louis came over they ended up kissing because they always had, that was what happened after a few beers and some shared joints. Louis was almost sulky still, biting at Zayn’s lip like he wanted to draw blood. “Oi, vampire boy,” Zayn muttered, digging his fingertips into the firm flesh on Louis’s hips, “what you playing at?” and Louis had ended up giving him lovebites on his neck that had been so blatantly obvious in paparazzi shots the next day that the entire internet had ended up making fun of him. _What a beautiful day !!_ Louis had tweeted, apparently unrelatedly. Arsehole.

Nights after that. Days after that. Louis cannonballing into Zayn’s pool and riding his inflatable crocodile like a knight going into battle. Zayn going baby shopping with him and spunking thousands on a top of the line high chair and a car seat and something called a Diaper Genie, whatever that was. “Those are for Briana,” Zayn told Louis on the way back to the car. “You can get your own,” and Louis rolled his eyes and agreed. Louis came down to the studio, where the last few touches were being put on Zayn’s album. “It’s not too shit,” he said reluctantly after hearing a few songs, and Zayn rolled his eyes at him. They went on to a club after that and almost got kicked out when they got into it in the smoking area. “It’s not so good it couldn’t have waited another fucking year,” Louis spat, angry, scathing. “You wouldn’t have fucking died. You could have stayed,” and Zayn shrugged, turned himself into himself, put himself away because the only other option was raging and losing this forever all over again, and said “No, I couldn’t,” as mildly as possible. Let Louis rage at him, until he burned himself out. Took him home, and put him to bed, and kissed him awake the next morning, Louis sleepy and sweet-faced in the morning light. “You could have stayed,” he murmured again, sounding younger now, and Zayn shook his head, kissed his way down his stomach and muttered “I’m sorry,” to the sharp curve of Louis’s hipbone. Felt Louis’s fingers in his hair, gentler than he’d expected.

It’s a month, maybe, give or take. A month of Louis in his bed again, of feeling whole. Zayn writes a bonus track, almost a cappella, just his voice and a piano. Louis will understand when he hears it, maybe. Louis has One Direction duties, the last days, the shattering pillars of a mostly-gone empire. Ozymandias dormant in the sand. Zayn says “I could make an appearance with you lot somewhere,” and Louis says, “Like fuck you will,” and throws more t-shirts angrily into his suitcase. Finally Louis kisses him goodbye, jerky and upset, and goes to London. Zayn goes to New York for a few days and takes some pictures for Louis Vuitton for their spring/summer campaign, which is cool, he supposes. They’re back in LA at just about the same time. Louis says “That’s that done then,” and Zayn helps him paint his nicest spare room pale eggshell blue. Louis has a smudge of paint high on his cheekbone as he stands in the middle of the room to survey it, and says with a tremor in his voice, “It’ll like it, won’t it? All babies like blue? Not just boys?” and Zayn says sagely, “I used to like pink.” It seems to make Louis feel better, funnily enough.

They spend a night outside on sunloungers by Zayn’s pool, mostly by mistake. Zayn’s halfway asleep when Louis says, groggy, “Do you remember what I said to you in LA?”

“Which time? We’ve been to LA a lot.” Zayn squints up at the sky. The dark is starting to bleed away down past the horizon, light glowing behind the night.

“Just before I broke up with El,” Louis says. “We were in that hotel room and I said…”

“Are you sure I was awake?” Zayn asks. He remembers it like it was yesterday: Louis’s voice, soft and hesitant. _It could be like this. You and me,_ Louis had said. And then he broke up with Eleanor, and then Zayn left, for a million reasons: because the constant tightness in his chest and heaviness in his head were too exhausting, because he was afraid of Louis and the fans and what his mum might say, because he thought he loved Perrie too much to hurt her again. Yeah, that was a good one. He remembers the warmth and heaviness of Louis in that kingsize bed next to him, his hopeful silence after the question. The smell of sex heavy in the room, the taste of Louis’s come on his tongue, the sheets scrambled and damp with sweat. A whole night spent together in public and then in private. He remembers letting his breathing even out until he didn’t have to pretend to be asleep any more.

“I thought maybe you were,” Louis says, soft, and then there’s another pause before there’s a rustling noise and Zayn gets hit in the face with a pizza crust. Louis laughs like crazy, the monster, the bastard, the prick. Zayn never hated him at all, although for a while he thought maybe he did. He wipes cold melted cheese off his nose and tries hard not to smile.

A few days later it’s the last day, which is fine. Louis is trapped in LA until Briana has the baby, and probably for months after that too. Zayn has promo to do, by himself for the first time. Fear and excitement is an intoxicating combination, like gold in his veins. They wake up together and in the shower Louis puts his head on his shoulder and his arms around his waist, and they stay like that until the water runs cold. Louis toasts him a bagel and puts cream cheese on it and they sit in silence and eat together, Louis’s hair damp and messy over his forehead and his frown. Zayn puts his hand on the worktop palm-up, fingers outstretched, and wordlessly Louis takes it.

He has to leave eventually. The car pulls up outside and Louis says “I didn’t realise it was that late,” and Zayn shrugs, wordless and empty, like his insides are being slowly clawed away. They stand in his hallway staring at each other like idiots and finally Zayn manages to say, “Call me. When the baby’s born, I mean. Before then too, if you want. Send me pictures of it.” He thinks of the flowers he’ll send, bunches and bunches of them, fragrant and beautiful in Briana’s house as she carries her and Louis’s baby gently from room to room. As though that’ll make a difference. “I hope it’s got your eyes,” he tells Louis, and Louis smiles, just a little.

In the hallway they hold each other for maybe too long, Louis so solid and warm and familiar, smelling of Zayn’s shampoo, Zayn’s old AC/DC shirt too wide in the shoulders for him. Zayn’s finger creeps through a hole in the shoulder to touch Louis’s bare warm skin. His phone rings then and they have to let go of each other, slow and regretful. “I have to leave,” Zayn says, switching his phone onto silent and pushing it back into his pocket. “It isn’t that long. A month, maybe.”

“And then you’ll come back,” Louis says, his eyes elsewhere, on the wall behind, his fingers tight around Zayn’s wrist.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, his throat tight. He doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth or not, if it really can be different, but he repeats anyway, more strongly now: “Yeah. Then I’ll come back.”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [flomps](http://flomps.tumblr.com) and my twitter is [foracorkscrew](https://twitter.com/foracorkscrew) \- say hi! Thanks for reading, let me know if you liked it. It was originally found [here](http://flomps.tumblr.com/post/129003037986/zouis-our-embrace-lasted-too-longwe-loved).


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